'I have quite changed my mind. I am going to run away and become a boy.'
In these three stories, written by Djuna Barnes under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe, three characters find themselves on the brink of a sexual awakening - accompanied by guns, whips, and worldly innuendo.
A fourteen-year-old girl plans to become 'a virago', until her mother intercepts her first tryst by dressing up as her male lover. A boy of the same age is lured into the forest by his father's mistress. A woman of forty falls in love and longs to kill herself, so unbearable is the return of the youth she thought she wanted. 'Alice', she tells herself, 'be a man.'
Barnes makes gender and desire seem slippery and joyful - and makes the fictional Lydia Steptoe seem like a writer for our time.
Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.***
Today I am fourteen: time flies: women must grow old. THE DIARY OF A DANGEROUS CHILD
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(@FaberBooks, 3 January 2019, ebook, 26 pages, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I enjoyed The Lydia Steptoe Stories. I didn't realise at first the stories had been written under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe and thought they were about the same character. Doh! The stories are all different but contain similar thematic echoes such as gender and identity and are all quite dark at times. I enjoyed all of the stories.
